Student-loan borrowers with graduate school debt should get more relief under Biden's new proposal to make monthly payments cheaper, a top Democratic lawmaker says

• The public comment period for Biden's proposals to reform income-driven repayment plans just ended.
• Rep. Bobby Scott, top Democrat on the House education committee, suggested relief be expanded for graduate students.

Public comments on President Joe Biden's proposals to reform student-loan repayment are now closed — and a leading Democratic lawmaker made sure his opinion was heard.

On Friday, Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the House education committee, submitted a comment to the Education Department regarding its latest proposal to reform income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which give borrowers affordable monthly payments based on their incomes with the promise of loan forgiveness after at least 20 years.

Given the difficulty borrowers had in actually achieving forgiveness through those plans, Biden in January announced a series of proposed reforms, including amending the Revised Pay As You Earn (REPAYE) plan, which was created in 2016 to calculate borrowers' monthly payments based on their discretionary income, rather than creating an entirely new plan. It would also cut undergraduate student loan payments in half and shorten the timeline for them to receive relief.

But Scott said in his comment that "a final rule can go farther to ensure borrowers with the most need can easily access the benefits of these changes" — especially when it comes to borrowers with graduate school loans.

"I propose decreasing the time of repayment for graduate loans under REPAYE from 25 years to 20 years in the final rule," Scott wrote. "Parity between the undergraduate and graduate loan repayment timelines would incentivize borrowers to enroll in the more generous REPAYE plan and reduce confusion when deciding on a repayment plans generally."

He also noted that his suggestion would "help address the unfortunate inequities within graduate borrowing, such as the fact that Black borrowers owe nearly twice as much as White borrowers in graduate loans, and Latino borrowers experienced an average increase of 60% in student debt between 2004 and 2016."

Borrowers with graduate school loans often have an especially difficult time repaying their debt if they took out grad PLUS loans, which are a type of federal loan with the highest interest rate. The interest can accumulate on a borrower's principal balance, making it difficult to touch the original amount borrowed.

Biden's proposals would also address that interest accumulation, known as capitalization, by limiting it in all instances possible. Still, while Biden's new IDR reforms would be significant if implemented properly, Insider previously reported that it risks creating yet another plan that doesn't work as intended.

Along with those reforms, which the department plans to implement this summer, Biden will also be tasked with resuming repayment for millions of federal borrowers after what will be over three years of the pandemic payment pause, and if the Supreme Court upholds Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers, that will add another administrative burden to the administration.

It's unclear if Biden will make any changes to his proposals following the public comment period, but many borrowers continue to hope it will be an improvement to what they have experienced over the past few decades.

"I don't live an extravagant life, but just the basic necessities of life, and so I've done the income repayment plan for a while," one borrower previously told Insider. "But it's been very confusing and they don't make it easy."